Lost Cause

Jeremiah 20:7-13

Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem
Rembrandt, 1630 (PD)

Being Prophetic was the predominant aspiration of most of my seminary classmates. 

We were certainly attending seminary at a crossroads in modern American history. 

Myself, having left the Marine Corps and police work to attend seminary, it was awkward to be surrounded by friends and classmates whose prophetic voices sounded interestingly like condemnation, and even damnation for my alleged sins. 

The places where I felt most welcomed were the places where people would ask me questions about what I had done, rather than providing me with an immediate scolding upon learning how I had earned a living up until that point. 

Questions like why I served and fought in a war that I may not have agreed with. 

Questions like how I could profess my role in making arrests, in poor urban communities predominantly occupied by systemically oppressed generations of black men and women. 

I began seminary in 2012, as all these questions were beginning to churn again, and visions of a revolutionary church providing the justice that uniformed police and military could not, filled my classmate’s agendas, heads, and hearts. 

I didn’t mock their idealism then, and I do not mock it today. 

I do, however, see it as an unrealistic vision of what it truly is to be prophetic. 

I have shared this before, perhaps too many times, but when I was interviewed for my first call, I was asked how I would serve as a charismatic leader for others to follow. 

I told them I didn’t want to be. 

There is only one charismatic leader for us to follow, and that is the Christ, Jesus. 

And it didn’t turn out so good for that guy, now did it?

I only got one awkward laugh, from the senior pastor, following that comment. 

The truth is, carrying any cross, or claiming the voice of a prophet, is not only a lonely position to occupy, but it can be a dangerous place to occupy as well. 

~

In the first lesson for today from Jeremiah, we hear the prophet’s reaction to humiliation and condemnation. 

He is responding to the sharpest rebuke and disgrace imaginable following a physical assault from the high priest, Passhur,  and having just been released from the stocks outside the Temple. 

Humiliated by the highest ranking religious leader, outside of the holiest place imaginable, all for passing an honest and ominous warning to the people, to his very own people. 

A warning no one really wants to hear. 

Perhaps because they don’t believe it, or perhaps because they just don’t want to believe it. 

The pure and simple fact is that the most accurate prophetic proclamations, are most often a sad fate that is ignored by the community to which they are delivered. 

Most prophets are condemned as pessimists or fools. 

Jonah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John, Jesus, are all but a few examples of prophets who are doomed by the words that they spoke. 

Spat upon, laughed at, defeated and disheartened. 

Even the prophet Jeremiah that we hear from today is not known as Jeremiah the wise. 

Biblical scholars refer to Jeremiah today as “the weeping prophet.”

And while perhaps not intentional, it certainly conjures up an image of a whiner, does it not?

The role of a prophet is not a comfortable role to claim, and while many boldly make that claim, in attempts to gain notoriety and attention, the loudest prophets are perhaps the one’s we should be the most wary of. 

Those prophets whose quotes seem worthy of hallmark cards, best seller book lists, and framed motivational posters in the waiting rooms of many dental offices, are perhaps not really voices of prophets at all. 

Perhaps those are the voices of the opportunists who seek out the glory of their own two thumbs, rather than the uncomfortable justice and peace that God lays out before us in these stories, songs, poems, and histories we claim have so much power over us?

Prophecy in scripture is most often the ignored predictions of the damned and the defeated. 

But, that is where this story is so much different, because it is in the silenced lips of the true prophets that God can draw truth from lips that can no longer even draw breath. 

Christ Carrying the Cross
Hieronymus Bosch, 1498-1516 (PD)

Carrying a cross is an overused idiom. 

It is a prophetic word that has been oversimplified, because I can truly say, that it is not all that it is cracked up to be. 

I proudly wear the cross on my uniform, and while it is not the first time I have worn this uniform, the past few years of wearing the cross on this uniform has taught me a valuable lesson about what it means to carry the cross, and what it means to speak an undervalued word. 

I joke often with friends, that the cross is placed above the rank, to allow those with whom you speak to know just how many times to demote you. 

As an O3 Lieutenant in the Navy, I usually assume that I function as an O1 Ensign. 

The formula is quite simple, you take the rank of the chaplain, and demote them by two. 

I’ve been under fire five times in my life while wearing the cloth of my nation, but as a chaplain I hold no tactical command in times of combat. 

I do hold the authority and role to give advice on what is moral, ethical, and contributes to the well being of those I serve beside. 

But that advice is nothing but a mere suggestion, which can be easily ignored. 

Luckily, I am rarity. 

I am an introverted chaplain and pastor, and although I try to speak truth, when it goes ignored, I don’t usually take it too personally. 

Thankfully, I have a good model to follow. 

I don’t seek out the most powerful or authoritative, I seek out those on the margins. 

Rather than the powerful, I seek out those tax collectors, those prostitutes, those beggars. 

On this last deployment, most of my congregants never saw the inside of the tent where I held worship, unless they were playing video games or watching a movie in that dual purposed space. 

But when they called home to speak with their families, many wives and girlfriends were shocked when they exclaimed “YOU’RE hanging out with the Chaplain?!”

When we have a prophetic word to share, it will likely be ignored by most, but we should always be aware of just who is listening, because that is the most fertile soil where the ignored seed is planted, the ignored soil is also by far the richest for us to till. 

~

Jeremiah’s words today, and the words that follow, all the way to verse 18 is a lament. 

Jeremiah laments for not only his condemnation, but he laments being chosen as God’s prophet. 

Jeremiah laments being enticed, in this poem, or perhaps a more accurate interpretation is being courted and wooed by God. 

Jeremiah voices regret over falling in love, passionately for God, only to walk down a road of heartache. 

At one point, in verse fourteen, which wasn’t included in today’s reading, he even voices regret for the very day he was born!

He curses his community, he curses God, he curses himself, and he curses the world, out of defeat, frustration, and a deep emotional and even a physical consequential pain. 

Now, who would choose this?

I have to admit, there are days I feel like Jeremiah, but I also give thanks that I am not a renowned prophet just yet, and I should count myself among the lucky ones. 

~

Martin Luther King Jr. was a prophet, and he was most definitely a renowned one, 

but perhaps one of the most significant prophets of the 20th century has escaped notice by most.

Although some know his name, very few know the significance of one particular prophet in the civil rights movement.  

Emmett Till was a young teenage boy, visiting his family in Money, Mississippi, all the way from Chicago, Illinois. 

Emmet and his friends went to the Bryant Grocery store to buy candy, where one of the shop owners, a 21 year old white woman, was working at the time. 

There was some kind of exchange at the store, but even the most serious claims amounted to the young Emmet Till taking her by the hand and cat-calling at her. 

The response to the story was severe. 

The woman’s husband and one of his friends recruited two other men to pickup the 14 year old boy, beat him within an inch of his life, shoot him, tie him to a fan, and leave his body weighed down in the middle of a river. 

Three days later, when Emmet’s body was discovered, naked and brutally disfigured, Mamie Till insisted he be transported back to Chicago, and be displayed for all to see at an open casket funeral. 

Even in death, Mamie, the wounded and grieving mother of Emmet knew he had work to do. 

Emmet’s death was so horrifying and brutal, that the barbarism of lynch mob justice, which had been ignored for so long was brought to the light. 

The Prophet Emmet, who never spoke from behind a pulpit, spoke words to the nation and lit a spark that ignited the civil rights movement. 

He also warned the nation of what was to come, what has come, what will come, and what will continue to occur if we do not listen to that prophet and so many other prophets who came before, after, and will continue to come. 

A few weeks ago, when I watched video of the Ahmaud Arbery killing, I heard Emmet’s voice again. 

The Emmet Till Memorial Triptych by artist, Sandra Hansen
1 June 2011 (CC)

I’m a runner, and during my time in Seminary at Gettysburg, one of my favorite memories was running along the battlefield. 

I used to run past the line where Confederate artillery batteries sat, pointing at the Union position. 

Early in the morning, while fog settled across the battlefield, I would hear the ghosts of the men who’d fallen. 

Some days, I would stop a mile and a half into my run, looking out over the sight of Picket’s Charge. 

Somehow that event became widely known as Picket’s Charge, even though it was General Lee’s decision to execute the attack, and make the greatest military blunder of all time. 

General Longstreet warned Lee of his predicted outcome, and it was ignored. 

Longstreet was not the first to warn of a confederate defeat. 

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the forebears predicted that the uneasy agreement between slave and free states would drive a wedge into our fragile republic. 

They predicted that the issue of slavery would bring the nation to the brink of collapse, and they warned that kicking the can down the road would only deepen the wound. 

Everyone knew from the nation’s birth that the original sin of slavery would wound the nation, but like Longstreet’s warning to Lee, those objections were not heard. 

Those warnings died on the lips of those who screamed words of warning. 

Those warnings died in halls of Congress. 

Those warnings died on the fields of battle.

Those warnings are still being shouted out as that war we thought ended long ago, still rages today. 

Those warnings cried out time and again of a lost cause, which was another title awarded to Picket’s Charge and in all reality, the civil war at-large; “The Lost Cause.”

It was all a lost cause, and it remains a lost cause that haunts us again and again. 

Yet the only prophetic word that rings out are the words that rise from the lifeless lips of the oppressed; 

Those who did not choose to be prophets, but those who’ve become the fertile soil of God’s warnings. 

I am capable of sharing prophetic words, but I am no prophet. 

We don’t need prophets. 

We need to listen.

We need to hear their words, because they rise from the grave. 

The longer we ignore their words the deeper that wound will cut. 

Ignoring the whispers of those prophets that haunt us is nothing but a lost cause, 

Let us allow the prophets to finally find peace. 

Let us heed their warnings, abandon the lost cause of ignoring their prophetic words, and find peace for them. 

Perhaps even work toward finding a peace for ourselves, where all the screaming will finally cease. 

Amen

Artillery piece overlooking "Picket's Charge" at Gettysburg
Photo taken by Author

*This is my personal blog. Thoughts and opinions are my own and are not necessarily those of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, Navy Chaplain Corps, or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.